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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 6th, 2023

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  • I’ve been using a Flint 2 for the better part of a year. No complaints. I was used to a decent Asus router and replaced it when it went end-of-life because the OpenWRT firmware for the ASUS device wasn’t feature-complete.

    I installed vanilla OpenWRT as soon as I took the Flint 2 of the box and I ran into no major issues. I only need to focus on home use with wired and wireless clients, plus a network printer. The web interface works as advertised, as has the command line interface to the extent that I’ve played around with it. Once I dealt with the basic setup, I’ve been able to forget that it’s there other than to install new updates when they become available. Whenever I feel like it, I’ll see about installing some services like router-level vpn or network adblocking. Not a priority yet, plus I like doing clean installs when I update the router firmware.




  • Stay away from Chromebooks. Even if you get a Chromebook that is reported to play well with Linux, there can be issues. I have/had two different Linux Chromebooks. They both had unique pitfalls.

    I had an arm-based Chromebook that was actually the development target of a custom distro. At its best, it still required a fairly specific wifi dongle to work without kernel hacks. Even then, the processor was slooow and storage was a bit of a problem if I was using it for anything other than text editing.

    I’m running an intel-based Chromebook these days with Arch. The biggest bottleneck is the built-in nonupgradeable storage (16gb). Most of my home folder is symlinked to an SD card that I keep in the slot at all times. It works well and has great battery life, but there are easier ways to play with linux on a laptop.



  • Mint is based on Ubuntu, both of which are versioned release distributions. The idea behind versioned releases is that the kernel and a lot of the software are all chosen and tested to work well together. It gives the user a system that won’t change much for several years. Rather than getting the latest and greatest, you get a known, relatively static set that works smoothly and gets security/stability updates rather than big upgrades. Typically, distributions like Mint only get minor security updates to the chosen kernel during their lifetime. You’ll see additional patches to kernel 6.8, but nothing beyond that.

    To get a newer kernel, the safest option is to wait until Mint 23 gets released and do a full upgrade to the new version of Mint. Along with the kernel, other pieces of the operating system will get a bump to much newer versions. Mint gives you the option to try newer kernels, but this is less stable and could break your system.

    There are other types of Linux distributions that ship new versions of the kernel much more regularly. Rolling releases (to one extent or another) update the kernel and other software shortly after the new code is available and tested.




  • Haha! My definitions are arbitrary now that I think about it. Tons of gray area, since it’s all fiction to begin with.

    My definition of ‘soft’ would be any magic system that lacks exact rules or a concrete cause and effect relationship with scale. Flexible power from a vague connection to a god, planet of origin, or elemental source would be soft. Even softer if there are dozens or hundreds of vague sources with unpredictable effects.

    Specific, quantifiable effects from a concrete source (a specific spell, ritual, or x amount of a substance) would be hard.


  • Malazan Book of the Fallen is fairly soft due to complexity and overlapping systems. A dozen or so themed sources of magic(warrens), several older sources of power (holds) and several powers specific to certain species.

    Some characters can access several of these sources and one character semi-accidentally creates a supplemental system that might be more rules based. Geographical location matters and the warrens/holds are also physical realities separate from the main one with their own hazards.

    Also, there are mysterious elder entities and there’s always the possibility of ascending to godlike powers through a parallel system of high houses roughly aligned to warrens and mysterious buildings but defined by an in-universe tarot deck that can be altered…







  • No argument here. It is insane to me that if I want content that isn’t locked into a particular ecosystem, I have to seek out public domain material or pick from the small subset of books that is sold DRM-free books in an open format. For anything else, money can’t buy flexibility. For most books, the only options for digital are accepting the DRM, waiting until copyright expires (good luck with that one), or privateering with out a letter of marque.